11. Taylor
Chapter 11
Taylor
I taste the sauce with a wooden spoon and savor it for a moment before picking up the balsamic and adding a splash. Turning down the burner to let it mellow out, I move on to the dough resting on the counter. I’m just getting ready to stretch it out and press it into the olive oil coated pan when two arms snake around my middle.
“He’ll be here soon.”
I smile, even though she can’t see me.
She’s nervous. Has been all day.
This isn’t the first time we’ve had a date like this in our almost three years of dating, but somehow this one’s different.I can see the difference in Gemma. In the way she’s pacing around trying to make everything perfect. The way she’s explained to me at least three times what her childhood connection is with this guy and why I need to be nice to him.
And I will be nice—to a point. I’m still not convinced this guy is going to have anything to offer her…but I do get why she picked him. I’ve gotten to know him a bit over the last week, and it’s obvious why everyone in the kitchen seems to love him. He ’s smart, levelheaded, personable, and rich as fuck. He’s a guy who’s going places in life.
I’m not particularly excited about being a phase in someone’s journey of self-discovery, but Gem seems to think he’s worth the time, so I’ll humor her.
“You ready?” I ask, hands still working the dough into a large rectangle.
She leans on the counter next to me, close enough that I could kiss her, but far enough that she isn’t risking getting her dress dirty. I relax a bit at the sight of her, all dolled up in a teal blue dress, her hair in the soft curls she always complains about not having time to do, cheeks flushed with excitement.
No matter how this all goes tonight, that party dress is coming off by my hands.
I do kiss her then, suddenly overwhelmed with the thought of having to wait through his whole evening to get her naked. “You know, we could just skip dinner and go straight to bed.”
She laughs and takes a step back, as if I’m going to grab her with my floury hands. It wouldn’t be the first time. “I don’t think he’s going to be quite ready for that.”
“Not exactly what I meant.”
She takes another step back, hands on hips. “You’re going to be on your best behavior tonight?”
“A perfect gentleman.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “He seems to think you’re a bit of an asshole at work.”
I scoff. “He’s just never worked in a kitchen before.”
“Uh, huh. So, if I was to stop by the kitchen next week, I’d find you helping him learn the ropes?”
I turn from my project and walk toward her, backing her into a corner of the counter as she squeals and tries to avoid my floury hands. “If you stop by the kitchen next week, you’ll find yourself bent over in the mop closet.”
Her laughter echoes through my chest cavity as I continue to lean over her, my little captive.
The doorbell sounds, and we both freeze, gazes locked.
I can see the request in her eyes, and I nod but can’t bring myself to step back and let her escape.
“You know I love you, right?” she whispers.
“Tell me,” I whisper back.
Her face spreads into a smile. “I love you like the stars love the moon. Like the wind loves the leaves.”
“Like a black hole loves a spaceship?” I ask.
She cocks her head to the side. “Sure.”
When I still fail to step back and let her run off, she takes a step closer, pressing her chest against mine. “This one’s different,” she whispers, mimicking my thoughts from earlier.
I nod. “I know.”
“Are you nervous?” she asks.
I shake my head, but it’s a lie.
This woman is searching for something. That’s been obvious from the day we met.I suppose I’m also searching, but that doesn’t mean I’m not scared as hell for something to come along and make things…different.
“Hey.”
His voice from behind me makes me take a step back and Gem rushes away. Damn roommates must have answered the door.
“Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting?”
“No. Hi. Welcome.” She’s in full hostess mode.
I suck in a deep breath and count to ten before turning around to begin my evening of playing nice.
“Hey, Taylor,” he says, and I try not to let the words hit me like a blow to the face.
I wanted to be the one to greet him first. Show that I’ m the bigger man. The man of the house. Even though I’m not sure I’m either of those things.
“Ainsley,” I respond, the unfamiliar syllables stumbling off my tongue. It’s strange, but I’m sure that’s the first time I’ve ever said the guy’s actual name.
He smiles, andI turn back to my dough.
I have exactly zero intention of acting like a jerk and causing any tension between Gem and I, but right now I don’t have any kind, gracious host-like things to say, so I decide it’s best to keep my mouth shut.
“I brought wine,” I hear Ainsley say behind me.
I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or to Gem, but the magic word has me turning, first real smile of the evening trying to force its way through my poker face.
He holds up a bag, and I wipe my hands on a towel and reach for it, taking care not to brush my fingers against his as I take the heavy canvas sack. It clinks as I settle it on the counter, making sure all four bottles are standing before I slide the bag down.
Kid did good.
I nod my approval as I examine each of the labels. He had no idea what I was cooking, so he must have just chosen a spectrum to be safe. I’m not unhappy with any of the options.
“Nice,” I say, not looking over at him.
He comes up beside me, too close, and lifts one of the bottles. “Can I open one?”
I take the bottle from his hand more forcefully than I intend. “I’ll do it.”
I need to get out of his space—out of his aura—as Gem would call it. It’s suddenly hard to breathe. I try to be cool as I cross the kitchen to the messy, jampacked utensil drawer where Gem and her roommates keep the wine key, as well as about a hundred useless kitchen items.
Gem and Ainsley are quiet behind me, and I can feel four eyes on my back. I should say something, but I don’t. Luckily, my lover knows me well enough to jump in.
“Let me give you a tour. This house is strange and wonderful.”
“Sounds great,” he answers.
“Wait.” I finally find my voice but it’s too loud. I turn, bottle in hand, and they’re both watching me. “Let me pour you some wine first.”
“Wine tour,” Gem chimes in, just as lovely and charismatic as always.
I slosh a heavy pour of the almost effervescent white into two stemless glasses and hand them over. Each of them takes the glass with a silent smile. I watch them walk down the hallway toward the massive, curving staircase that leads to the upper floor and disappear around the corner.
Then I pour myself a half glass and pound it.
Another and I slow down to savor a sip. It’s incredible. I don’t want to think about how much these bottles set the guy back or the fact that I’d never be able to splurge like this on wine for a casual dinner party.
When I finally hear their voices coming back down the hall, I’m rotating the focaccia in the oven and preparing to set a big pot of water to boil.
I greet them with a warm smile, compliments of the wine. “You show him all the secret passageways?”
Gem looks far more relaxed then she did when he first arrived, and the sight of it relaxes me.
Ainsley shakes his head in answer. “It’s incredible that they put those in.”
“She told you the history of it all?”
The house is like a relic from another time, standing its ground in the middle of an otherwise fully gentrified neighborhood in Seattle. While everything else was being bulldozed to build more and more shiny, identical condo buildings, one of Gem’s roommates’ aunts has managed to keep this property afloat, leasing it out year after year to female artists. The backyard is straight out of a dystopian comic strip, no need for fencing as it’s surrounded on all three sides by five story buildings.
“Yeah. It’s really cool that they’ve gotten to keep it all these years. The house I grew up in in New York, where Gem lived for a while, has some of the same strange stuff from that time period. I guess it was more normal back then to need secret escape doors from every room.”
“Well, yours were more like servant exits. The ones in this house were definitely put there for smuggling,” Gem says.
I grind my teeth at the word servant and turn back to the stove. “Dinner’s going to be about fifteen minutes.”
“Can I help?”
I jump as the words come over my shoulder, much closer than I expected him to be standing all of a sudden. “Uh, you two can set the table if you want.”
When it’s ready, I dish up pasta, sauce, and bread onto three mismatched China plates and let Gem help me deliver them to the table. Another bottle of wine, red this time, fills the glasses.
We settle into what I think is a comfortable silence as everyone tucks in. Gem starts making her famous food appreciation noises, and I smile as I watch the sounds wash over Ainsley. He’s got his eyes locked on her lips as she closes her eyes and tilts her head back, letting out a long, low moan.He must feel me watching because his gaze meets mine—and then drops quickly to his plate.
Unsurprisingly, the quiet will no longer do. He dives in headfirst.
“So, you cook all day at work and then come home and cook?”
It’s a painfully cliché statement that I wouldn’t usually justify with a reply. But Gem’s now watching me as well, mouth full of bread, sharp eyes not missing a blink.
“This,” I motion with my fork to my nearly untouched plate of pasta, “is cooking. What I do at the university is a means to an end.”
He wants to question me on that, I can feel it coming, but Gem jumps in.
“That’s right. You two work together?”
I told her everything that I know about his situation and how he’s been in the kitchen for the last week, so she’s fishing for his side of the story. I can’t say I’m disappointed. I’m keeping up my end of the bargain and being nice, but I can still enjoy watching him squirm.
“Yeah, I’ll be there for a few months getting some community service hours in.”
I’m impressed that he doesn’t try to lie. The last thing I’d want to admit on a first date—if that’s what this is—is that I recently got arrested.
And I know I’m supposed to be on my best behavior, but I push my luck. “What’s the story with that? All it says on your paperwork is that you have two hundred hours to complete. It doesn’t say why.”
His gaze turns icy as he levels it at me, and I don’t blame him. He chews slowly and swallows, taking a long sip of his wine before answering.
“I was at a Greenpeace protest. They needed someone to chain themselves to the anchor of a whaling boat so it couldn’t leave the dock, and I volunteered. The cops came with bolt cutters and handcuffs.”
Gem nearly chokes on her wine as she sputters out, “Really?”
I just scoff. “I should have known it would be the most pretentious, yuppie fucking story?—”
“Shoplifting,” he says quickly, cutting off my rant.
“Excuse me?” I manage.
“It was shoplifting. That’s what I got arrested for. It was stupid and I wasn’t really shoplifting at all, but here we are.”
Gem and I reach for our wine in unison.
“You’re going to have to come with a better story than that,” I say.
He sighs, setting down his fork and taking up his own glass. “It was at the end of spring quarter last year. I stopped at the market down the street from my apartment to get a drink on the way to class. I got one of those fountain drinks from the machine, but when I got to the counter, the line was really long. I was going to be late for an exam, so I just left. I figured I’d stop by on the way home and pay. I thought the guys who owned the place kind of knew me. I guess the people in line saw it happen and made a fuss, so the owner called the cops.”
I want to laugh much louder than I actually do.
“Isn’t your dad a lawyer? He couldn't make that go away? It seems like something a judge would throw out,” Gem says, shaking her head, unsurprisingly livid on his behalf.
Ainsley shrugs. “The judge we got was feeling a bit less than sympathetic toward rich guys trying to make legal trouble disappear, I guess. We probably would have won in court, but the plea deal they offered would wipe it off my record once I completed volunteer hours, so we went that route. The word shoplifting doesn't look good on a permanent record, and I’m sure there would have been plenty of times I wouldn’t get to explain how stupid it all was.”
“Well, at least you got a good volunteer position at the school. You could have ended up on a road crew or something.” Gem’s adorable enthusiasm fades as neither of us jump in to agree with her.
Finally, Ainsley nods. “I’m very lucky to have somewhere to do my hours that works with my school schedule. I’ll be done in time to apply for summer internships and that’s what matters.”
“And Taylor, you must be happy to have some extra help. You’re always saying how short staffed the kitchen is.”
I hold eye contact with Ainsley as I take a sip of my wine before answering. “I don’t want to talk about work.”
To his credit, the guy actually looks pretty relieved. I thought he might try to play some kind of sympathy card with Gem, tell her what a dick I am at work, but it seems he’s smart enough to know how our dynamic in the kitchen would make him look like a weak little shit.
Which I’m officially starting to doubt he actually is.
“Yeah, of course,” she says quickly. “No work talk.”
“I’ve gotta be honest, this feels like some kind of interview,” Ainsley says, rolling up a bite on his fork and pushing it into his mouth.
I look away from that mouth and try to focus on my own plate.
“No, no. Just dinner,” Gem says, but you’d be a damn fool to believe her.
No one does.
“Good,” Ainsley says anyway. “I’m not sure that guy is who I'd want interviewing me.”
He pins me with another of those intense stares and my mind actually stumbles for a moment, taken completely off guard by the surprise of his attack after I just decided he was surrendering.
Gem starts to answer but I recover and get there first. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
He holds my gaze, neither of us willing to be the first to look away.
“Is there something I need to know?” Gem asks, hand sliding over to rest on my thigh.
I take the win of her affection and drop my gaze to her. “Everything’s fine.”
She narrows her eyes at me, and I know I’m going to hear about this later.
“Is this something you two do often?” Ainsley’s voice cuts into our little moment, and I feel both relieved and annoyed. “Bringing people in like this?”
“No,” I tell him honestly, at the same time Gem says, “Yes.”
My head turns sharply back to her in time to watch her shake her head.
“I mean,” she starts, twirling her fork like she’s got something to be nervous about. It’s uncharacteristic and concerning. This guy has her all out of sorts. “We’ve always known that we wanted our family to be bigger. But we’ve never seriously considered…”
She trails off and glances at me as if I'm going to take up the helm of explaining to this near stranger how the cards told her he was part of our destiny.
I don’t say anything, and the table falls into a far less comfortable silence.
“But this is just dinner,” Gem says finally.
“So I'm not going to end up naked and chained in a dungeon somewhere in this freaky house?” he says, and it’s clear he’s only partially joking.
“No,” she says firmly. “No dungeons.”
I leave them alone to chat about their shared childhood history and clear the table. The quiet of the kitchen and the warm water of the dishes calms me down enough to think more clearly.
There’s something here. With Ainsley. It’s making Gem act crazy, and it’s making me nervous.
She wasn’t lying before that there were others. We’ve had plenty of memorable nights with a third person in our bed, but that’s all it was. A person in our bed.
This is different.
Last night when she pulled the Page of Cups, I’d searched every damn book I could find on her shelves to find one that would give me the interpretation I needed to say no to this, but none of them did. They all proclaimed a fair-haired man would waltz into our lives, urging us to stay open to new relationships, to take risks for love. When she tapped her short pink fingernail on the cup in the figure’s hand, where a little fish peeked out, I know she was reminding me without words about their serendipitous fish and chips Christmas night.
And I knew I was fucked.
It’s true we’ve always wanted a bigger family. We’ve always been open to growing our relationship to include the last puzzle piece we both feel is missing.
I just wasn’t prepared for it to be so…
I don’t even have the words I need to describe the feeling.It’s not jealousy. I want her to have all the love she needs, and I know she wants that for me, too. Hell, watching her get railed is one of my favorite activities, right behind railing her myself.But no one’s getting railed tonight. It’s just a lot of talking, a lot of feeling each other out.
All the other guys were walking hard-ons.
This guy? He’s something else.
With the dishes done, I can’t hide in the kitchen any longer. I emerge into the dining room and the two of them are standing, laughing at something, touching just slightly, her hand on his upper arm.
I’m happy she looks so happy. All I want in life is to see this woman smile,and the fact that I have to remind myself of that right now makes me nervous.
“Dinner was really delicious,” Ainsley says, turning to me.
I nod, never quite sure how to handle the compliments. “Sure.”
“I’ve gotta get home to my dog, though.”
Gem turns to me, beaming. The wine and the happiness stain her cheeks pink, and I’m completely enamored with the glow of her. “He’s got an old hound dog.”
“I’m sure he does,” I answer.
Whatever energy I brought to the dining room broke up the jovial atmosphere, and I’m both sorry and glad. Ainsley pulls his hoodie off the back of a chair and slips it onas my beautiful, tipsy girl steps in too close and surprises him by being right there on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss that was meant for his cheek close to his lips as he turns.
I watch the scene unfold in slow motion.
Ainsley takes a step back, hand raising defensively to his face.
Gem’s gaze falls at the implied rejection, and she takes a step back of her own.
Pretty boy recovers, to his credit, and realizes what she was trying to do. With a smile on his lips, he reaches for her. But she’s flustered and snubbed and isn’t going to let him make it up to her.
With a sigh, I step forward and pull her close to me, her back to my front, pinning her to me with my arms locked inside hers. I turn her to face him.
Ainsley’s piercing gaze finds mine.
“Kiss her,” I growl.
He only hesitates for a moment before stepping forward and pressing his lips right onto the lips of my willing captive. She leans into it and so does he, each of them blossoming open in the comfort of realizing they aren’t going to get turned away.
Ainsley breaks off first, taking a step back. Gem’s smiling again, and I’m hard as a damn rock.
I watch as he pulls off his hoodie and holds it in both hands, letting the dark fleece hang down in front of his legs.
You and me both, buddy.